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Quake Leaves Cracks in Washington Monument, Closing It for Now

WASHINGTON — While the angst over whether this country’s political system is broken seems likely to go on for the foreseeable future, it gave way to some degree Wednesday to more immediate concerns about how badly the Washington Monument had been cracked.

The monument was damaged Tuesday by a magnitude-5.8 earthquake that rattled nerves across much of the East Coast, particularly the parts that directly experienced the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Although the quake’s epicenter was less than 100 miles away, the Washington metropolitan area suffered mostly minor damage to homes, schools, office buildings and other businesses, and most of the region’s infrastructure was unscathed.

The National Cathedral appeared to be the hardest hit, with fallen capstones, broken statues and cracks in several flying buttresses.

However, fractures in the walls of the Washington Monument, a towering icon of American strength and influence, had the potential to become the only vestige of the earthquake to capture more than fleeting national attention.

While schools were closed, most of Washington returned to normal on Wednesday. But the monument, which at more than 555 feet is the world’s tallest stone structure, was closed to visitors so that engineers could hover in helicopters and examine its interior walls to determine the extent of the cracks in its peak.

Photo

Engineers were studying how serious the fractures in the Washington Monument are. The obelisk is the tallest stone structure in the world.Credit
Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

“We’re not sure how long it will take,” said Bill Line, a spokesman for the National Parks Service, when asked when the monument might reopen. “The engineers are going up there today. They may need to go tomorrow. And they may need to go again the day after that. But until we figure out how badly the structure has been damaged, no one else will be going up other than them.”

In any event, fewer people have been going to the top. The number of annual visitors has declined from a high in the 1980s of some 1.3 million to fewer than 650,000 last year.

Several longtime Washington residents milling around the obelisk Wednesday admitted they had never visited the site but decided to walk by on their way to other monuments, hoping they would be able to see the damage.

Among them was Perlean Williams, who celebrated her 65th birthday by visiting the city’s newest monument, to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“I’ve been looking at this thing my whole life,” she said, waving a dismissive hand at the monument, which honors America’s first president and was finished in 1884. Echoing the views of many African-Americans who have long hoped the capital would pay similar tribute to their struggles, she added, “No offense to George Washington, but the Martin Luther King Memorial really means something to me.”

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It was a day to take stock of damage from the quake, like a stone angel on the roof of the main tower of Washington's National Cathedral.Credit
Jason Reed/Reuters

That is not to say no one comes to pay their respects to the father of the country. Although a post-9/11 security system has reduced the number of visitors, Mr. Line said the National Park Service gives away an average of 1,700 tickets a day to people who want to ride the elevator to the top for the sweeping views.

That is what brought Krishna Murthy Gopalan all the way from southern India.

“I saw New York from the Empire State Building,” he said. “So I wanted to see Washington the same way.”

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For many, however, it was enough to see that the monument was still standing. Colleen Tully of Boston said the brief panic caused by the earthquake brought back memories of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

“Sure we’re disappointed the monument is closed,” she said. “But it would be really upsetting if it had fallen over.”

Carrie Cohen echoed that thought. “People may say the monument is broken like our political system,” she said. “But the fact is, it’s still standing and so are we.

“Considering all the catastrophes around the world,” she added, “it would be silly to get upset about a few cracks in a monument.”

Jada F. Smith contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on August 25, 2011, on Page A16 of the New York edition with the headline: Quake Leaves Cracks in Washington Monument, Closing It for Now. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe